Starfield Thread - now with Shattered Space horror expansion

[Feyd Rautha]

Copin' Emil:

Oh right, this guy:

What's wrong with being a "war criminal" in the context of what's shown in that clip from the Fallout 1 intro? They are keeping the peace... The guy being shot could have conducted a serious crime.

 

[Caim]

Copin' Emil:

Oh right, this guy:

What's wrong with being a "war criminal" in the context of what's shown in that clip from the Fallout 1 intro? They are keeping the peace... The guy being shot could have conducted a serious crime.

We don't have any context about whether the puck was sentenced to death, so we have to assume that these two soldiers were executing a prisoner of war, which is a war crime.

Unrelated, but this has caused people to believe that Nora was the JAG that got Nate out of his war crimes. There's no proof in-game that Nora was affiliated with the military in any capacity, but it makes for a heartwarming story.

 

[ind33d]

If Elden Ring could hire George RR Martin, why doesn't Bethesda hire some famous sci-fi writers to write paid modules for Starfield? Even an entire faction questline shouldn't be that much work to implement considering all the assets and systems are made already. They could even submit the paid mods to literary competitions as a publicity stunt

 

[Butter]

If Elden Ring could hire George RR Martin, why doesn't Bethesda hire some famous sci-fi writers to write paid modules for Starfield? Even an entire faction questline shouldn't be that much work to implement considering all the assets and systems are made already

Why make the effort? Bethesda fans have been happy to consume garbage stories thus far.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Martin made FromSoft's story telling worse lmao.

But i understand the argument, and the answer is pretty much what Butter says. Why bother put any effort, the fans will slurp up any garbage you throw at them. Most AAA companies, which say what you will about the quality of the content, at least still need to put the effort to make their games work correctly. Bethesda doesn't even need to do that, since they have an army of modders ready to fix their games for them at not cost.

 

[Lemming42]

Unrelated, but this has caused people to believe that Nora was the JAG that got Nate out of his war crimes. There's no proof in-game that Nora was affiliated with the military in any capacity, but it makes for a heartwarming story.

They should have actually done this. Obviously a premade protagonist, and a prewar protagonist in general, is an absolutely abominable idea but if they were determined to basically write their own new setting and story over the top of what was once Fallout, I'd actually enjoy this one. Playing as a fully-indoctrinated pre-war nationalist with insane worldviews who has already either carried out war crimes or worked to cover them up, whose response to the post-war world is constant anger and reciting propaganda soundbites and being absolutely ready to kill anyone who's acting in "un-neighbourly" ways.

 

[Caim]

Unrelated, but this has caused people to believe that Nora was the JAG that got Nate out of his war crimes. There's no proof in-game that Nora was affiliated with the military in any capacity, but it makes for a heartwarming story.

They should have actually done this. Obviously a premade protagonist, and a prewar protagonist in general, is an absolutely abominable idea but if they were determined to basically write their own new setting and story over the top of what was once Fallout, I'd actually enjoy this one. Playing as a fully-indoctrinated pre-war nationalist with insane worldviews who has already either carried out war crimes or worked to cover them up, whose response to the post-war world is constant anger and reciting propaganda soundbites and being absolutely ready to kill anyone who's acting in "un-neighbourly" ways.

You have played a Wild Wasteland run in New Vegas, now get ready for...

Prewar Propagandist.

 

[Butter]

Unrelated, but this has caused people to believe that Nora was the JAG that got Nate out of his war crimes. There's no proof in-game that Nora was affiliated with the military in any capacity, but it makes for a heartwarming story.

They should have actually done this. Obviously a premade protagonist, and a prewar protagonist in general, is an absolutely abominable idea but if they were determined to basically write their own new setting and story over the top of what was once Fallout, I'd actually enjoy this one. Playing as a fully-indoctrinated pre-war nationalist with insane worldviews who has already either carried out war crimes or worked to cover them up, whose response to the post-war world is constant anger and reciting propaganda soundbites and being absolutely ready to kill anyone who's acting in "un-neighbourly" ways.

That's nowhere near bland enough for Bethesda.

 

[Fedora Master]

A game so excellent, people would rather talk about Fallout 4

Lmao

 

[Ryzer]

A game so excellent, people would rather talk about Fallout 4

Lmao

Literally nobody at Bethesda cares about Codex and what people think.

Todd and Emil are millionaires, Todd is probably a billionaire. Their company sells millions of copies. They have a family, a beautiful wife and happy kids.

What do you have? None of that.

You and them are not the same.

 

[Fedora Master]

A game so excellent, people would rather talk about Fallout 4

Lmao

Literally nobody at Bethesda cares about Codex and what people think.

Todd and Emil are millionaires, Todd is probably a billionaire. Their company sells millions of copies. They have a family, a beautiful wife and happy kids.

What do you have? None of that.

You and them are not the same.

I don't know what you're talking about. Take your meds, don't be part of the problem and find God. Hope this helps.

 

[Orange Clock]

Bethesda needs a change after Starfield's middling release, just not the one you're thinking of​

I've been a Bethesda fan for decades, by which I mean I consider Morrowind my favourite game of all time and I've gotten progressively crankier about everything released thereafter, so perhaps it's inevitable that the dull thud Starfield made when it released has made me start thinking about the studio, its past, and its future. In short? I think it needs a change. A major one.

But not, perhaps, the change most people of my disposition might usually demand, which is to see if Ken Rolston fancies coming back before luring Michael Kirkbride into a room containing a dragon's hoard of substances and not letting him out until he's rewritten the Bible. You can't go home again, and if we learned anything from Starfield's anodyne plot and forgettable characters, it's that Bethesda just isn't chasing narrative complexity at this point.

It is, however, interested in systems. Bethesda's worlds are (usually) ones in which everyone has a job, a routine, and a bedtime, and even though Starfield jettisoned all that in favour of a panoply of crafting doodads and some No Man's Sky-style inspiration, it's still heavy with unrealised systemic potential in the same way all the company's games are. So here's my pitch: Bethesda, let your games write themselves, because I'm not sure you're all that interested in doing it anymore.

In essence, what I mean by this is to turn these rolling sandboxes into something more akin to Dwarf Fortress, Rimworld, or Crusader Kings. I don't mean "turn them into strategy games," but rather lean into the jank, the weirdness, the haphazard collection of systems that often fail to mesh.

Let Constellation fall apart because Andreja slept in Sarah's bed and everyone got a bit shooty about it. Let major characters fall out because one of them is programmed to love sweet rolls and another is violently allergic. Get a bit State of Decay with it: I want Akila City to collapse into factional conflict because everyone disagreed about whether Pearl Jam rules. If the main quest—if we still have to have one—becomes unbeatable in that time? Que será, será.

Earlier this year, I messed around with an Oblivion mod that arbitrarily placed every single NPC in Cyrodiil into one of a few gangs and then set them all at each other's throats, sparking a province-wide war that would only end when one gang won a climactic final conflict for the Imperial City itself. That, well, probably wouldn't work as the basis for a multi-million dollar first-party Microsoft release, but doesn't it set your mind to wondering?

What if the studio fleshed out its orphaned and simmy systems a bit more, giving its NPCs likes, dislikes, schedules, desires and impulses? What if those memetic conversations about mudcrabs could actually mean something, maybe devolving into arguments or sparking relationships based on the character of the, uh, characters involved? What if we were trading stories about the latest wild thing that emerged organically from our Starfield playthroughs instead of asking each other which of the side quests is "The Dark Brotherhood one" (meaning the one that's actually worth your while) this time?

Because to me, Bethesda's games have felt at odds with themselves for a while. They're big, narrative-driven RPGs where the narrative is paper-thin, and sprawling clockwork worlds where none of the systems ever really bounce off one another. It's gotta go one way or the other, and frankly I want to see the studio get weird with it. I'm very happy to continue playing inside this ancient, rickety engine if the things it ends up producing are actually interesting. People played Dwarf Fortress with ASCII graphics for literal decades!

Right now, the studio that made my favourite game of all time feels like it's at a creative dead end. Don't get me wrong, I'm not forecasting doom. I don't doubt Bethesda can continue making games along exactly these lines and making more money than god in the process. But I don't think its current trajectory will produce a game that blows anyone's mind in the foreseeable future, certainly not the way it used to. And since we can't go back to 2002, why not reach for the stars?


https://www.pcgamer.com/bethesda-ne...g-release-just-not-the-one-youre-thinking-of/

Too many words to say I want TES VI: Warband

 

[ERYFKRAD]

The suits at Bethesda will implode thinking of the voice acting costs that will entail.

Too many words to say I want TES VI: Warband

 

[Orange Clock]

The suits at Bethesda will implode thinking of the voice acting costs that will entail.

Too many words to say I want TES VI: Warband

Just use AI, it’s better than their usual VA anyway. Plus since Altman died I don’t think they obliged to put Linda in it anymore

 

[Stella Brando]

I want TES VI: Wyrmlord

 

[NaturallyCarnivorousSheep]

Probably the best game ever honestly you guys are missing out if you haven't bought it yet.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.videogamer.com/news/skyrim-lead-bug-free-starfield-impossible/

Skyrim lead explains why “bug-free” Starfield was “impossible”, but admits Bethesda could have more “polish”​

As far as open world RPGs go, Bethesda’s Elder Scrolls, Fallout and Starfield offer some of the deepest experiences available for gamers. However, these sweeping RPGs have been fairly criticised for launching with hundreds of bugs that break quests, soft-lock players and more. While Bethesda is not unique in this regard, the studio is one of the most notorious.

In an interview with VideoGamer.com, Skyrim Lead Designer, Starfield Systems Designer and author of Mischief Maker, Bruce Nesmith, explained that game developers know the majority of bugs that are present in shipped games. After years of QA testing, hundreds of unfixed bugs are known and logged, but a “bug free release” is impossible.

A “bug-free” Starfield was impossible​

Alongside discussing the reasons why Bethesdsa hasn’t switched to Unreal Engine, Nesmith explained that the complexity of Bethesda games means it’s impossible to release an experience without bugs. With 40-years of game dev experience, the ex-Bethesda developer explained that developers typically know what bugs plague their games on launch.

“When a developer releases a game, they know all the things that are broken with it, these aren’t mysteries,” Nesmith explained. “I mean, every now and then you get a bug that’s like, ‘Holy s**t, I didn’t know that was going to happen’, but for the most part, you know it.

“[Games are] so large, so complex, particularly Bethesda Games, because you have so many working elements that are trying to interact with one another, that to have a bug free release is impossible. There is no game on the market that is bug free.”

The Bethesda Benefit​

Nesmith explained that modern games with millions of lines of code are always going to have bugs, particularly with the systems-driven nature of Bethesda titles. As active worlds, Bethesda titles have countless issues that could go wrong, and often they do.

Back during the release of Skyrim, and even during Fallout 4, Bethesda benefitted from a large degree of forgiveness for its technical hiccups. However, that sentiment has since disappeared, and gamers are now demanding a higher level of polish.

“I will be the first person to say that Bethesda Games could have a higher degree of polish,” Nesmith told us. “They have benefited, and when I was there I benefited, from providing such a wide and vast array of gameplay that a certain amount of lack of polish could be forgiven. Having an NPC run in place in front of a wall for a little while became acceptable because of the 17 things you could do with that NPC, whereas most games you’d be able to do two.”

At some point, months of bug fixes becomes a cost that can’t be upheld. Eventually, the game has to release, and the round of post-launch bug fixing commences. At that point, developers already have a list of bugs that need fixing, but that comes after.

“That level of polish also comes at a price,” we were told. “Are you willing to let the game sit for six more months and be delayed six more months in order to try to polish it? You’re still not going to get perfection, it’s just going to be better. So at some point you have to make the decision to publish, and to publish something you know has bugs. You’ve got a list of them—all 700 or whatever—and they’re out there anyway because I can’t fix them all.”

The expectation of perfection​

In our interview, we broached Nesmith with a question: if there’s a list of 700 known bugs, should those bugs be shared with fans on launch to temper expectations. As the Skyrim lead explained, it’s an interesting dilemma: will fans accept that certain issues are present, or will they be upset that they aren’t fixed?

“It’s an interesting problem, because when you’re in marketing, what you’re looking to do is manage expectations,” Nesmith said. “The players expectations are that the game is flawless, that it has no bugs. That is their expectation. You don’t have to like it, but it’s there. And you aren’t going to achieve it. So what marketing has to do is say, how can we get as close as possible to that expectation. How can we make it so these guys don’t hate us for what’s wrong and love us for what’s right?”

In a game as big as Skyrim, Fallout or Starfield, even bug fixing becomes a bigger job that many gamers expect. As Nesmith tells us, a bug where an NPC phases through a wall could be tied to any number of things. For example, a wall’s collision might not be set up properly, but there are thousands of walls to check, and in a game with procedural generation like Starfield, that becomes even harder.

Despite its technical issues, Bethesda has spent the past year fixing issues and adding in new content to Starfield. The sci-fi RPG has just seen its first expansion, Shattered Space, and the addition of land vehicles has made exploring even the most barren planets more enjoyable. However, there is still a lot of work to be done, and the RPG studio isn’t abandoning Statfield anytime soon.

With The Elder Scrolls 6 deep in development, all eyes are on Bethesda yet again. Can the studio replicate the massive hype of 2011’s Skyrim, will it release with hundreds of bugs? The latter, probably, as we’ve just explained, no game is bug-free, but will fans’ expectations be in check?

 

[Lyric Suite]

Back during the release of Skyrim, and even during Fallout 4, Bethesda benefitted from a large degree of forgiveness for its technical hiccups. However, that sentiment has since disappeared, and gamers are now demanding a higher level of polish.

Yeah, and you didn't deserve any of that forgiveness, you worthless hacks.

You were the only company who could afford that kind of laziness 'cause "modders will fix it". Now it has finally come to bite you in the ass.

 

[Kruyurk]

Imagine if we send a huge pile of shit in orbit of the Sun. In time, gravity will turn it into an almost perfectly polished sphere. Thus, shit can self-polish under the good conditions. Now imagine what kind of adventure we could live on this turd-planet. If we create many of these, we could turn or solar system into a Shitfield and be entertained until TES VI releases, the ultimate turd that will probably collapse our Universe.

 

[Lovely Feather Pillow]

I don’t get the hyper focus on bugs and game engine. Give us complex character development, give us weapon and armor variety, give us compelling progression, give us good characters and stories. If there’s content people want to engage with they will tolerate jank.

 

[Ryzer]

Back during the release of Skyrim, and even during Fallout 4, Bethesda benefitted from a large degree of forgiveness for its technical hiccups. However, that sentiment has since disappeared, and gamers are now demanding a higher level of polish.

Yeah, and you didn't deserve any of that forgiveness, you worthless hacks.

You were the only company who could afford that kind of laziness 'cause "modders will fix it". Now it has finally come to bite you in the ass.

Skyrim was so bugged on release, that it was downright unplayable if you were unlucky enough to have the famous bug where the horses go flying into the air 10 seconds after you launched the game, due to a bee. What a bunch of wankers.

 

[Kruyurk]

Skyrim was so bugged on release, that it was downright unplayable if you were unlucky enough to have the famous bug where the horses go flying into the air 10 seconds after you launched the game, due to a bee. What a bunch of wankers.

That's what you deserve for not protecting and weighting your horse down with a horse armor.

 

[ind33d]

People complained about bugs in Starfield? What bugs could there possibly be? I have like 600 hours and I only remember some CTDs. Are people fucking the game disk or something?

 

[Ryzer]

Skyrim was so bugged on release, that it was downright unplayable if you were unlucky enough to have the famous bug where the horses go flying into the air 10 seconds after you launched the game, due to a bee. What a bunch of wankers.

That's what you deserve for not protecting and weighting your horse down with a horse armor.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Back during the release of Skyrim, and even during Fallout 4, Bethesda benefitted from a large degree of forgiveness for its technical hiccups. However, that sentiment has since disappeared, and gamers are now demanding a higher level of polish.

Yeah, and you didn't deserve any of that forgiveness, you worthless hacks.

You were the only company who could afford that kind of laziness 'cause "modders will fix it". Now it has finally come to bite you in the ass.

Skyrim was so bugged on release, that it was downright unplayable if you were unlucky enough to have the famous bug where the horses go flying into the air 10 seconds after you launched the game, due to a bee. What a bunch of wankers.

And the "fans" were more than willing to forgive all that, but only when it came to Bethesda. New Vegas didn't get the same courtesy for some strange reason.